Building a Firebrand: Controversial Sports Commentators Cultivating an Audience

Home , Cold Pizza, Debate show, First Take (talk show), Jay Crawford, Max Kellerman, Michelle Beadle

BUILDING A FIREBRAND: CONTROVERSIAL SPORTS COMMENTATORS CULTIVATING AN AUDIENCE

ROBERT WINSLER

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2018

To Rachel, my parents, my sister, and grandparents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my dissertation committee. Dr. Rodgers understood my topic immediately which gave me confidence and he offered invaluable guidance both in meetings and notes along the way. Dr. Craig’s vast knowledge of the best readings to explain the political science portions were incredibly helpful. I would like to thank Dr.

Wright for briefly becoming the committee chair demonstrating leadership is enriched by optimism. Lastly I would like to thank Drs. Tripp and Wanta. I nearly left the program after my first semester but Dr. Wanta’s patience with teaching me to be a better researcher and Dr. Tripp’s command of the classroom reignited my passion to pursue this dream. I would like to thank Nick Van Horn and Aaron Beveridge for their work on

MassMine which is an amazing tool. I would also like to thank Dr. Pierre Charron and the National Research Council for use of their sentiment lexicon. Thank you to my parents for trusting me when I told them I would return to finish each degree along the way after taking time off and for never pressuring me to join the workforce full-time as I continued these academic pursuits. Finally, thank you to Rachel who I have promised in vain countless times that life gets less stressful but who still agreed to spend the rest of her life with me to see if, just maybe, one day I can follow through on that promise.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... 4

LIST OF TABLES...... 7

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 8

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... 9

ABSTRACT...... 10

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 12

Purpose of Study ...... 12 Significance of Study ...... 13

2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 15

History of the Networks and Shows ...... 15 ESPN ...... 15 Get Up ...... 17 Fox Sports 1 ...... 21 First Take ...... 26 The Split ...... 29 Theory and Concepts ...... 30 Definitions ...... 30 Social Identity Theory ...... 33 Branding ...... 36 Awareness ...... 36 Personality ...... 38 Management ...... 41 Loyalty ...... 43 Emotions ...... 44 Discrete Emotion ...... 44 Anger ...... 46 Disgust ...... 48 Political Behavior ...... 50 Rush Limbaugh ...... 52

3 METHOD ...... 54

Content Analysis...... 54 Survey ...... 56

Psychologocial Continumm Model ...... 57 Structure ...... 58 Data Collection ...... 60 Hypotheses ...... 62

4 RESULTS ...... 65

Hypotheses Tested ...... 65 Evidence of Psychological Continumm Model ...... 71

5 DISCUSSION ...... 77

Industry Analysis ...... 77 Commentator Loyalty Versus Favorability ...... 78 Further Study ...... 80 Conclusion...... 81

APPENDIX

A SURVEY ...... 82

B IRB PROTOCOL ...... 83

REFERENCES ...... 84

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 93

LIST OF TABLES

Table page

4-1 Frequency of emotional charged words in commentators’ tweets ...... 65

4-2 Emotional frequency from people tweeting at commentators...... 66

4-3 Commentator favorability...... 67

4-4 Commentator viewing preference ...... 68

4-5 Respondents committed to the commentator ...... 69

4-6 Low social media interaction ...... 70

4-7 Commitment revisited ...... 72

4-8 The importance of long-term commentator success ...... 72

4-9 Commentator loyalty influenced by peers ...... 73

4-10 Commentator loyalty influenced by popularity ...... 74

4-11 Commentator absolute loyalty ...... 74

4-12 Commentator multi-platform preference ...... 75

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

3-1 The psychological continuum model...... 58

3-2 Operationalization of psychological commitment ...... 59

3-3 Operationalization of fan behavior ...... 60

4-1 Statistically significant finding...... 68

4-2 The PCM revisited...... 71

4-3 Commentator multi-platform...... 75

A-1 Survey ...... 82

B-1 IRB Approval ...... 83

B-2 MTurk Forms ...... 83

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESPN The first network to be 24-hour sports coverage. ESPN originally stood for Entertainment and Sports Programing Network until the acronym eventually became the official name of the company.

FS1 FS1 is short for Fox Sports 1. FS1 is a 24-hour sports network launched in 2013 to compete with ESPN. It was known exclusively as Fox Sports 1 until 2015 when the FS1 rebranding occurred.

ESPN The first network to be 24-hour sports coverage. ESPN originally stood for Entertainment and Sports Programing Network until the acronym eventually became the official name of the company.

NBCSN NBCSN is the Sports Network affiliate of the National Broadcast Company, better known as NBC. Formally the Versus channel, NBCSN is third in line to compete with ESPN and FS1.

SIT SIT stands for Social Identification Theory. It is the main theoretical framework on which the research is conducted.

PCM The PCM is the psychological continuum model. This model of brand loyalty was developed for and has been used previously for understanding the intensity with which an audience connects to a sports object.

Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

BUILDING A FIREBRAND: CONTROVERSIAL SPORTS COMMENTATORS CULTIVATING AN AUDIENCE

Robert Winsler

August 2018

Chair: Wayne Wanta Major: Mass Communication

This dissertation explores the rapidly evolving industry of sports entertainment television. Through a mixed methods approach utilizing content analysis and survey research, this study examines how sports commentators build brand loyalty with an audience that allows them to be controversial without risk of losing viewership. These commentators manipulate discrete emotions to encourage audience interaction through watching their shows as measured by ratings and through social media interaction.

Discrete emotion is a theory in psychology that refers to the predictive action or behavior intention a person exhibits after experiencing one of the categorized distinct emotions.

ESPN has long dominated the sports television media but there have been some drastic shifts in the last three years. Fox Sports 1 has challenged the industry leader using a format of debate television pioneered at ESPN as ESPN struggles with its falling ratings on its flagship show SportsCenter. The underlying question the data answer is if debate television, which is cheap to produce though often receives negative critic reviews because of its sensationalism, can be profitable to a network because of audience loyalty or if viewers never develop an allegiance with the debate 10

commentators. The results initially show overwhelming signs of favorability toward Mike

Greenberg, a commentator not on a debate show who is known for family-friendly sports talk. However, the final data show that as a person moves closer to true brand loyalty with a commentator, this shifts back to Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless.

These two have reputations for sensationalism and are synonymous with debate television. This dissertation concludes that controversial personalities are likely to build a smaller but more loyal following than their better liked peers through this sensational rhetoric that emphasizes language intended to anger audiences.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Sports media has expanded rapidly in the last two decades in many ways. The types of programs have diversified, the number of sports dedicated television channels has multiplied exponentially, and viewership, with a few exceptions, rises each year. As the audience grows, so too does the big business of the sports advertising. Sports marketing practitioners are just starting to understand the magnitude of the industry and sports entertainment television scholarship is nearly nonexistent outside of gameplay but:

with the popularity of sport television and the large sums of money at stake […] it is not surprising that sports science and marketing professionals have attempted to better understand sport television viewing patterns (Wann, Grieve, Zapalac, Partridge & Parker, 2013; p. 179).

This dissertation presents a case for how a subsection of this broad industry cultivates an audience following and then engages them to interact on social media.

The area studied is the sports entertainment television that centers around controversial commentators debating each other’s opinions. A narrative unfolds of how the underdog

Fox Sports 1 network launched in 2013 is challenging long-time goliath ESPN through the use of niche debate programing and the data demonstrate the potential successes or failures that can arise from different commentator personalities.

Purpose of Study

There has been a need to study audience reactions to sports opinion as the sports media field has continued to grow. That need became a priority within the last five years as Fox Sports 1 launched as a significant competitor to the three-decade monopoly of ESPN. Aside from the direct competition within sports media, the television

industry itself is changing based on several other factors. The recent trends of consumers cutting the cord with cable, a colloquial expression for cancelling their subscription, and Fox Sports 1 unveiling a new line of programing built to compete with

ESPN has significantly changed the entertainment media landscape (Economist, 2017).

Social media has introduced dual-screen television viewing where participating in the conversation is as important to some audience members as the messages they are receiving from the TV.

This study has a dual purpose. The first objective is to tell the sports media narrative. This includes a broad picture since the beginning of ESPN but focuses specifically on the last five years since the debut of network competitor Fox Sports 1.

The two content creators exhibit some similarities but also stark differences in their approach to recruiting and retaining viewers. The history detailed in this dissertation helps anyone from the casual sports fan to the die-hard fanatic understand the business behind the screen. The second purpose is to provide data on a range of phenomena. Is there a correlation between likability and loyalty? Put another way, the study tests if a commentator who is widely popular with audiences has a commitment from their fans. It also takes a qualitative approach to analyzing the social media conversation. Tens of thousands of tweets from the audience to the sports commentators and tweets from the commentators themselves reveal emotions through word choice.

Significance of Study

Sports media contracts are big business. ESPN holds licensing deals with the

NBA and the NFL both worth in surplus of a billion dollars each. The entertainment programing built around commentators’ opinions of the athletes, teams, and leagues fills

the growing audiences’ demands for more content. Social media drives this nonstop conversation. The larger the audience size and the more engagements a commentator can bring means better profits for the companies vying to capitalize on this booming industry. Understanding how audiences are retained and what makes them engage on social media would be useful to business and is a phenomenon that can be better understood through academia.

This research contributes to testing the psychological continuum model in addition to helping explain findings through the social identification theory. Sports research in academia is growing as fast as sports media on television. This study contributes to that budding field, in addition to marketing, psychology, and political science.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This study focuses on the competition between ESPN and Fox Sports 1.

However, in order to understand the current state of the two largest sports cable networks in terms of viewership, a brief review of the industry as a whole must be stated to give the following material context. There are four major milestones in modern sports television history. These are the founding of ESPN in the late 1970s, the rise of the competing networks in the 2000s, the inception of Fox Sports 1 in 2013, and the adoption of the Embrace Debate 2.0 philosophy at FS1.

History of the Networks and Shows

ESPN

On September 7, 1979 at 7 p.m., ESPN began airing (ESPNFounder, 2017). The network was 24-hour sports coverage before any other, including CBS, ABC, and NBC, had a full day’s worth of programming. Distribution started spreading before content. In just four years, ESPN was broadcasting internationally to truly live up to its branding of the Worldwide Leader in Sports in 1983. Content diversification came next. ESPN negotiated multi-year broadcasting contracts with both the National Football League

(NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) by 1989 (ESPN Media Zone, 2017). The

1990s were important, not just for ESPN, but for the sports television landscape, because ESPN’s expansion in this decade would set the foundation for other networks to follow in its footsteps. ESPN2 began in 1993 followed shortly after by ESPNNews and many other sister networks of the Worldwide Leader flagship (ESPN Media Zone,

2017). This widespread expansion across a family of channels is a critical turning point for the significance of this dissertation for a couple of reasons.

The first is the profitability that ESPN demonstrated attracted the attention of those capable of stealing viewers by focusing on niche markets. These types of networks include dedicated networks for all the major sports leagues such as the NHL

Network which would not try to compete with ESPN across all sports but does seek to attract hockey fans. From 1998-2010, each of the major sports leagues including the

NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL all launched their own sports network. The second reason is the premier of ESPN’s first spinoff channel ESPN2 in 1993 to 10 million homes, and 19 months later, built an audience of 75 million homes; the fastest channel to ever do so on cable at the time (ESPNMedia Zone, 2017). This study centers around the first significant challenge to ESPN by Fox Sports 1. FS1 initially tried to match the programing of the flagship ESPN such as SportsCenter but soon rebranded itself using the same strategies as ESPN2, opinion-based debate television. Other networks are likely to begin entering the competition for audience attention. FS1 could be the trailblazer to map the way for others to gain an advantage while minimizing the chance of making the same mistakes. The success of ESPN2 in the 1990s will become the precedent for what FS1 tries to accomplish against ESPN throughout this dissertation just as FS1 may become the precedent for what others will do in the future of sports media.

The timing is ideal for a smaller network to challenge the monopoly as ESPN faces new adversities. SportsCenter, ESPN’s former flagship program that drove ratings both in the mornings and late at night has struggled to retain viewership and attract newer viewership in the coveted young male demographic. ESPN, under the leadership of president John Skipper, decided to make some drastic changes to the programing in

an attempt to boost the company to its previous profitability. His direction affected the commentators included in this study.

Get Up

The first decision was to give Mike Greenberg his own television show in place of

SportsCenter on ESPN. Greenberg had previously been one-half of a successful radio show simulcast on ESPN2 called Mike & Mike in the Mornings. The final episode of

Mike & Mike drew 378,000 viewers to ESPN2 making it the second highest rated episode in the program’s 18 year history trailing only the morning after the Cleveland

Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the NBA Finals which attracted 392,000 viewers (Pucci, 2017). This move, though long rumored to happen, was startling for several reasons. The first is the cost of producing the new program.

Greenberg, along with co-stars Michelle Beadle and Jalen Rose, are said to receive a combined $14.5 million annually in salary in addition to a new New York City studio

(Putterman, 2018). Some sports media critics noted the salaries and the studio sent the wrong message to other ESPN employees, hundreds of whom had just been laid off and hundreds more who work for much less pay in the freezing northern conditions of small town Bristol, Connecticut (Yoder, 2018; Pucci, 2018).

The second reason why Get Up came at an odd time was it ended a long-time successful program. Mike and Mike in the Mornings was almost instantly profitable for

ESPN2 and ESPNRadio then went on to have a decade and a half tenure increasing that profitability (Schleuter, 2017). The news also blindsided co-host Mike Golic who thought the pair was being called into Skipper’s office to discuss contract negotiations when he was told the show would be ending (Schleuter, 2017). Even before the

announcement that 2017 would be its final year, Mike & Mike was producing some of its highest rated episodes since the show’s beginning (Pucci, 2017).

The last factor that raised eyebrows with media critics is that Get Up was scheduled to compete with Mike & Mike, which would continue on ESPN2 as “Mike &

Wingo” now starring long-time ESPN personality Trey Wingo alongside Golic.

Greenberg’s new show Get Up now airs on ESPN from 7-10 a.m. as does Mike &

Wingo on ESPN2. One of the few possible explanations for the move would be to retain an audience Greenberg had cultivated at that timeslot in hopes they follow him to his new project on a new, more watched channel. However, with Greenberg scheduled against his former equally likable co-host Golic, it appears much of the audience was split or did not choose to follow Greenberg and ESPN’s hopes have yet to materialize into hard numbers.

Get Up opened to terrible ratings that slipped from bad to worse in a hurry. The debut episode drew 283,000 viewers, far less than the series finale episode of

Greenberg’s previous show Mike & Mike, and dropped to just 233,000 three weeks later

(Traina, 2018). The show did peak at 434,000 viewers the Friday morning following the first round of the NFL draft (Glasspeigel, 2018). Even with increasing its viewership from the 200,000s to the 400,000s, the overall performance of the show put into context is cause for concern at ESPN.

The subject matter needs to be considered when comparing audience sizes across a timeline. Get Up’s audience peaked at 434,000 but this came the Friday following the first round of the NFL draft (Glasspeigel, 2018). While the number looks good on the surface, especially when compared to the show’s ratings throughout the

month, it represents a 20% drop in viewership from the day after the first round of the

NFL draft in 2017 of those who tuned into Sportscenter at the same timeslot, the show that Get Up was created to improve upon (Glasspeigel, 2018). ESPN’s ratings were down for the NFL draft in 2018 as opposed to 2017 but this is because Fox Sports 1 shared the rights to broadcast the event and combined viewership of the networks accounted for a rise in viewers overall (Glasspeigel, 2018). This should have translated into a rise in viewers for Get Up over what SportsCenter had the previous year. There are a couple explanations for why it did not. The first is that viewers did not know about the new show and changed the channel when it was not SportsCenter. The more likely explanation, however, is that the shared coverage brought next-day-viewers seeking draft analysis to the rival FS1’s debate format instead of ESPN’s new talk show.

Unfortunately for ESPN, the trouble with putting Get Up’s audience size in context does not end there.

Two other problems surface for ESPN’s big gamble on Greenberg. The first is that Get Up’s first month also aired at the same time as the NBA Playoffs. This should be a good boost to the material the hosts can talk about. The NBA had a rise in regular season viewership, as opposed to other major sports such as the NHL which lost viewers, and playoff basketball audiences did increase slightly in 2018 over 2017 rising just 2% but increasing nonetheless (Glasspeigel, 2018). Instead, Get Up’s viewership dropped double-digits and lost up to 24% of its initial audience just four days after its debut (Putterman, 2018). Not only should the show not be losing such a sizable portion of its audience while the main topic of discussion continues to hold steady and build slightly on its previous year, but Greenberg’s co-hosts Beadle and Rose also appear on

ESPN’s coverage of NBA Countdown when the network carries Eastern Conference

Finals games. This puts the majority of the personalities on ESPN’s new morning show in front of audiences that average in the millions and, possibly even more troubling for the personalities themselves, should create a reputation of commentary expertise about the sport that would bring viewers of Countdown to Get Up to hear the commentators’ opinions the day after a game. This simply has not happened.

The final indication that Get Up may be a disaster for ESPN relates to the debate commentators. First Take, a debate show that airs immediately following Get Up, had not only been producing record ratings since its move to ESPN from ESPN2 but those audiences were growing even as SporstCenter which previously fed into it declined in popularity. Again, this may be a result of the sports calendar. The nine months that First

Take aired on ESPN began when football season did. Since football is by far the most watched and talked about sport in the nation, the show increased its chances of attracting audiences which it capitalized on. First Take saw a 25% increase in its daily average viewers when it moved from the sister network to the flagship network up to

449,000 (Wertz, 2018). This number dwarfed direct timeslot and genre competitor

Undisputed with Smith’s former co-host Bayless on Fox Sports 1 that averaged just

151,000 viewers for 2018, a fact ESPN was not shy about advertising (Brown, 2018).

Get Up reversed First Take’s success. April, the first full month in which Get Up aired, also was the first in ten months that First Take lost viewers. Not only did First Take lose viewers it was attracting, it was down 6% against its previous 2017 April benchmark

(Glasspeigel, 2018). This is also after First Take had posted its best quarter of ratings since the show’s inception 11 years earlier in 2007 (Glasspeigel, 2018). Get Up may not

be fully to blame for this but viewership spillover is a metric executives use to determine success and this does not bode well for the new show’s already weak audience. Even with its struggles in the first month, many critics concur that the show will have until

February 2019, after the next NFL Super Bowl, to find its footing with the public before it is considered a true blunder (Traina, 2018; Glasspeigel, 2018; Yonder, 2018).

Fox Sports 1

FS1’s initial intent was to compete directly with ESPN. The website Adweek reported shortly before the network’s official launch in 2013 “out of the gate, FS1 will televise an 11 p.m. ET news and highlights program that is pretty clearly meant to function as a challenger to SportsCenter” (Crupi, 2013). Fox Sports Live, a highlights and news show much like SportsCenter, was the centerpiece of this strategy. However,

Fox Sports Live failed to find footing with an audience and two years after the launch, the entire Fox Sports 1 network floundered. The debut episode of Fox Sports Live registered a 0.2 Nielsen rating with 476,000 viewers but the following episode dropped to a 0.0 rating (Kissel, 2013). FS1’s strong ratings in UFC and NASCAR, it was formally the Speed Channel, carried the network’s viewership but the entertainment original content continuously failed (Crupi, 2013). On FS1’s one year anniversary, rival network

NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) announced, correctly according to Nielsen numbers, that it was the fastest growing sports network (Yoder, 2014). FS1 would try different programs using well-established names in entertainment and sports such as Regis

Philbman and Mike Francesa but both shows were canceled within a year. A rebranding response was necessary.

The network settled on Jamie Horowitz to lead the rebound. Horowitz’ rise to prominence was a result of boosting the ratings of ESPN2’s flagship show First Take with the hiring of Stephen A. Smith yet his success on ESPN2 led to failure in a 10- week stint as the showrunner of NBC’s popular morning show Today (Carter, 2014).

Horowitz was hired as president of Fox Sports 1 in April 2015 and immediately made some key decisions in event programing with the women’s World Cup, other MLS soccer, and an agreement with the Big Ten Conference that lured many college sports fans to the network (Sandomir, 2016). With some early success over summer, Fox allowed Horowitz to completely rebrand the network starting with the new shortened name, FS1, in fall 2015 (Sandomir, 2016). He capitalized on the opportunity by copying the same strategy that made him a success at ESPN. First Take had used the hashtag

“Embrace Debate” during his tenure and he launched a philosophy that became known as Embrace Debate 2.0 at FS1 with three new commentator hires. He first added Colin

Cowherd, who he had worked with on a popular ESPN2 afternoon program Sports

Nation, then shortly after Jason Whitlock, a brash personality whose conservative views led to his departure from ESPN, but the coup-d’etat came when Skip Bayless, one half of the First Take success, agreed to terms to do a similar show on FS1 when his ESPN contract expired in summer 2016. With the lineup for Embrace Debate 2.0 hired, fall

2016 became the rollout for the biggest push to challenge ESPN using the strategy pioneered on ESPN2.

The hiring of Jamie Horowitz and his subsequent hiring of Skip Bayless and Colin

Cowherd undisputedly changed the direction of the network. The question remains: did it work? The answer is complicated and depends on an impossible consensus

agreement on definition of success. For example, in 2017 FS1 forced Horowitz from his position as president of the network amid sexual misconduct allegations which he did not try to challenge. This could be seen as a failure. However, while ESPN, ESPN2, and

NBCSN all lost audiences, FS1 was also the only network to gain overall viewership from 2016 to 2017 which could be seen as a success for which Horowitz should be credited (Yonder, 2018). The wide range of analysis depicts the complexities of running a network.

With Horowitz only there half the year in 2017, the main focus on the network’s success falls to Cowherd and Bayless whose $5 million annual salaries each make them the highest paid personalities on FS1 by a considerable margin. In April 2018, the

Charlotte Observer ranked the top five sports television personalities placing Bayless and Cowherd in the third and fourth spot respectively with Bayless’s co-host on FS1

Shannon Sharpe taking top overall honors. Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman, co- hosts of First Take on ESPN, rounded out the top 5 at 2 and 5 respectively (Wertz,

2018). Conspicuously absent from the list was Mike Greenberg who had just finished

Mike & Mike to some of the best ratings in the show’s history and was about debut his long-awaited, often delayed new ESPN show Get Up discussed above.

The ratings numbers suggest that both Bayless and Cowherd do bring an audience with them and both have the ability to attract more viewers with time. This trend could be considered a success for the network. Undisputed has been steadily rising from 110,000 viewers on average in the first quarter of 2017 to 131,000 average by year’s end (Brown, 2018; Wertz, 2018). Undisputed started 2018 with 151,000 which was a 37% over 2017 (Brown, 2018). Even with Undisputed’s slow 2017 start, the

program still managed a 45% increase in viewership in 2017 from 2016, which is largely due to syndicated low-budget programing FS1 played through much of 2016 (Wertz,

2018). The ratings have translated to profitability in some areas. Before his untimely exit for sexual misconduct, Horowitz did announce that Cowherd’s radio show simulcast on television The Herd was already profitable a year and a half into its start and that

Undisputed was not far behind (Brown, 2018). This does not necessarily prove that

Cowherd and Bayless were worth their high-dollar deals, but the network is pleased with progress made in a short time.

A lot of factors could explain the rise in audience retention. FS1 is the only non-

ESPN competitor with original programing that does not center around specific sporting events. For example, NBCSN has original pre-game shows leading into the NHL

Playoffs but does not have daytime television like Undisputed or First Take. As audiences abandon ESPN, FS1 becomes the second choice because it is the only choice. Another factor may be the guest personalities and analysts are familiar to audiences because they were previously on TV with ESPN. As ESPN began laying off hundreds of workers including some of these former players and coaches with ample airtime experience like former Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez, Fox Sports 1 signed them to deals and continued to put them in front of viewers (Yoder, 2018).

Another reason might be because Fox Sports decided to overhaul its website in 2017 to release a newly branded Fox Sports Digital that relies heavily on video clips from its shows streamed free without needing to enter information about a cable provider

(Yoder, 2018). This appeals to those who have cut the cord and strengthens the commentators’ followings. Lastly, Fox Sports has been successful in choosing what

sports contracts it does broadcast. Owning a share of the NFL draft helped drive numbers on its shows the next day but in addition to that, FS1 in 2017-2018 will broadcast the MLB World Series, Big Ten college football, Champions League UFC, and its biggest event the FIFA World Cup in 2018 (Yoder, 2018). Previous studies show audiences will stay with the channel they watch the event on to get commentary the next day and this has helped boost Fox Sports 1’s viewership. It also stands in stark contrast to NBCSN that does hold the rights to both the summer and the winter

Olympics but only gets to broadcast those every two years as well as the NHL which is losing audiences as a sport (Wertz, 2018). ESPN does broadcast the most popular sports such as the NFL on Monday Night Football but is saddled with long-term deals with the NFL, the NBA, and the MLB which will no longer be profitable if the ratings of the NFL and MLB continue to slip as they have.

All of these reasons could contribute to why FS1 is a network growing viewers when its competitors are not. Though FS1 was built to compete with ESPN, it now averages just 9,000 viewers less than ESPN2 in 2017 which closed a gap of averaging

67,000 fewer in 2016 (Yoder, 2018). This closing ratings gap is why this dissertation considers Fox Sports 1 to be the model for future competition. Bayless and Cowherd are roughly halfway through four-year contracts. Both shows will likely be profitable by the time contract renegotiations begin, with The Herd already producing some profits, but the commentators’ true value will be revealed in those numbers as the network evaluates its initial gamble. One aspect difficult for numbers to quantify is the result of

FS1 hiring many of ESPN’s fired personalities and ESPN giving large contracts to personalities on shows such as Get Up and SportsCenter which are stale and no longer

find favor with audiences. New, young talent may be looking to FS1, which is also based in sunny Los Angeles instead of freezing Bristol, as viable alternative to working for the Worldwide Leader in Sports if audiences and morale continue to grow.

As the competition between the networks intensifies, the centerpiece programs become of the utmost importance.

First Take

First Take’s history ranges from nearly canceled talk show on a sister channel to one of the most watched shows on the main ESPN network. First Take became the model of debate format programing which has spawned many imitators and holds significance for its contributions to sports entertainment media. Though the show has seen many different names, personalities, segments, and even networks on which it airs, much of the show’s content has remained consistent for 15 years.

The show originally began on ESPN2 as a program called Cold Pizza. Cold

Pizza was intended to target young males and provide an alternative to morning show content on other networks such as ABC that geared content such as wedding plans and cooking toward women (Battaglio, 2003). The content was not fully the discussion of athletes and sporting events the way First Take would become and did retain some morning show elements that had a sports spin. For example, a relationship expert was brought on to discuss if a romantic engagement between a Boston Red Sox and New

York Yankees fan, two teams known for their intense rivalry of each other, would work long-term as well as a recurring segment on sports video games (Battaglio, 2003). The show’s aim was to appeal to young males 18-39 years old who only made up 7% of the morning show viewing total audience but ESPN2 executives were quoted saying there

was profitable margin if enough of that small population could tune in (Battaglio, 2003).

Debate TV would eventually adopt this same strategy.

Cold Pizza began on Oct. 19, 2003 as a way to celebrate ESPN2’s 10 year anniversary (Romano, 2003). The show would run for five years featuring former ESPN

SportsCenter personality Jay Crawford and co-host Kit Hoover. Like Get Up would a decade and a half later, the show initially debuted to weak ratings and bad press that led to several changes a year after its inception. The first was a move from 7 a.m. to 8 allowing its target demographic more time for sleep. Several new segments were introduced such as the NBA Hit which highlighted what songs basketball stars were listening to and also a city feature called “the most tortured cities in sports” (Reynolds,

2004). The last, and most influential to the direction of the show, was the introduction of a new segment called “1st and Ten” in which career newspaper journalists Woody Paige and Skip Bayless would do a point/counterpoint debate over sports athletes and issues

(Reynolds, 2004). Cold Pizza Executive Producer Brian Donlon said at the time, “I think

Jay, Woody, and Skip are three interesting, exciting guys that more viewers will get to know” (Reynolds, 2004). He was correct.

The debate-style segment spiked the ratings of Cold Pizza and Donlon quickly capitalized by giving the segment its own program in ESPN’s afternoon lineup. The show received a much warmer response from audiences than Cold Pizza and ran successfully for two years with Crawford hosting and Paige and Bayless debating as commentators until Paige’s brief departure from ESPN in 2006. The show sputtered with various guest contributors opposite Bayless but needed a rebranding to retain audiences. 1st and Ten moved back to ESPN2 and merged with Cold Pizza to form First

Take debuting on May 7, 2007. First Take held moderate popularity with the following

Crawford and Bayless had built but saw a substantial ratings increase in 2011 when certain structured segments were dropped and Bayless was allowed to lambast whoever the guest contributor was with his unbridled opinion (Evans, 2012). Many commentators, several of whom are now featured on Fox Sports 1, were victimized by

Bayless’s rants from across the desk without an ability to respond in kind. In January of

2012, longtime radio host and ESPN contributor Stephen A. Smith began to join the desk and Smith, with his own audience following because of a debate style similarly sensational to Bayless, increased First Take’s ratings 58% in the first three months he began appearing on the show as a guest (Zeitchik, 2012).

Jamie Horowitz, the eventual president of FS1 who at this time was newly promoted to vice president of programing at ESPN2, capitalized on the popularity signing Smith to a full-time contract to appear daily on First Take in April 2012. Horowitz explained his reasoning in terms of audience emotion, which reflects the concept of emotion’s importance, “Some viewers genuinely hate Skip and Stephen A. But they also watch them” (Zeitchik, 2012).

The genuine hate may not be limited to viewers toward the commentators but extend between the commentators themselves. After signing on full-time, Smith said of his co-host, “[Skip] is not my flavor. I’m a fortysomething black man from the streets of

Queens; he’s a 60-year-old white man from Oklahoma. It’s not like we go shopping on the weekends” (Zeitchik, 2012). Nonetheless, Smith debuted as a full-time commentator on the show on June 4, 2012 and First Take’s volatile ratings skyrocketed once again in the months that followed.

The Split

First Take’s numbers would ebb and flow over the next three years but the show remained at the top of ESPN2’s ratings and created enough spillover audience to successfully launch other shows that followed. As Bayless reached the end of his contract in 2015, several key factors happened to determine the events that followed.

First, former ESPN2 vice president Jamie Horowitz was hired as the president of Fox

Sports 1. The move came as FS1’s initial programing that featured highlight shows that matched the style of SportsCenter and shows driven by celebrity personality both in and out of sports. This approach, as mentioned previously, failed to find footing with audiences and Horowitz ushered in the debate style format for almost every show in

FS1’s line up which kept production costs low in hopes turn profits quickly and by a large margin.

The split caused both sides to claim success independent of the other as the

Bayless and Smith rivalry raged cross-network. Bayless’s experiment initially debuted to low numbers, averaging just over 100,000 viewers an episode, but has steadily been rising. This increase has allowed Undisputed to claim it is the fastest growing sports show on cable. As ESPN shifted First Take, now co-hosted by Max Kellerman alongside

Smith, to its main network as opposed to ESPN2 it produced a ratings increase nearly double what it had been on the smaller network. ESPN did not miss an opportunity to advertise this ratings dominance over Undisputed to counter the Bayless-led show’s claims about explosive growth (Glasspeigel, 2018). While it does not appear that

Undisputed has reached its peak and it should continue to grow, especially when

football season attracts more casual viewers of the nation’s most popular sport, Smith and First Take’s numbers appear to have not suffered with the loss of Bayless.

Theory and Concepts

This section begins with a definition of what sports entertainment debate is. After the genre is defined and certain characteristics of its commentators are established then theory and other constructs in the literature will be examined. This is the social identification theory and the concepts of how a brand builds awareness into loyalty. The following subsection discusses the roles emotions can play in a television viewing audience and how these may act as motivators for further action such as posting on social media. The final subsection is a review of relevant political science literature. This phenomenon of controversial commentating recruiting and retaining tremendous audiences has been found in that industry for decades and Rush Limbaugh is presented as a case study.

Definitions

By defining what debate television is, this study will help contribute to the overall field of academia through its explications of this emerging style of programming.

Definitions, however, vary greatly and can be difficult to find agreement or consistency in conceptualization. A standard dictionary definition is limiting and thus a broader view infused with academic research must be applied (Condren, 2012).

Sports television media has shown great diversification in the types of shows scheduled. ESPN, the industry leader, already airs news shows such as Sportscenter, feature programs like E:60, and debate panels on First Take. The latter of this list will be the focus of this definition. By explicating the concept, further research can then be

done on audience effect of debate, which has been examined in other disciplines such as politics but remains ill-defined in sports media. The foundation of these concepts will be found in political science and then applied to the niche of sports.

Targeting audiences through types of programing first became successful in

1969 with the launch of educationally-driven Sesame Street (Linebarger & Piotrowski,

2010). Genre targeting, and the study of it, has expanded to a seemingly endless number of categories from reality TV (e.g. Daalmans, Hijmans & Wester, 2014), crime drama (e.g. Daalmans et al. 2014), and scripted comedy (e.g. Furnham, Hutson &

McClelland, 2011).

The scale of big business that sports media has become as described in the introduction section has created significant sizes of viewers even in the different subsections of programs which makes research into the audience effects of these shows incredibly important in academic pursuits. Sports entertainment was first considered in the 1980s shortly after ESPN debuted. Before then, motivations of media exposure during sports events had been studied, such as people who watch games buying the products advertised during the program, but the motivations of what led people to consume sports media had not been well studied (Gantz, 1981). Part of this is because prior to ESPN there had not been much opportunity to consume sports media on television. News reports about sporting events were limited to weekend coverage in the afternoons when televisions first started during the 1950s and 1960s (Gantz, 1981).

It was not until the mid-1970s that sports reached weekday coverage and not until the late 1970s that it was aired in primetime (Gantz, 1981).

This study defines a sports entertainment commentator as an individual who appears on television discussing sports but who does not participate in commentating or announcing sporting events. This last part is important because it emphasizes the content is for entertainment instead of the competitive nature of the sporting event itself.

A sports entertainment commentator is also not a journalist, although many in this study started working for traditional print and radio news outlets. The distinction was less clear when the industry began. In the 1950s and 1960s, sports television outside of games was news delivered by journalists who chose what to report based on the merit of its newsworthiness (Gruneau, 1989). This began to change in the 1970s. As athletes became more popular, sports reports became less news and more storytelling with the narrative driving the segments instead of the newsworthiness (Gruneau, 1989).

Narrative reporting grew audiences demand for more content, and as a result, immediacy developed as a crucial factor in broadcasting (Gruneau, 1989). These principles of storytelling and immediacy are what separate and define sports entertainment commentators from game announcers or television journalists.

The final concepts to define are what makes a commentator favorable as opposed to unfavorable and controversial instead of family friendly. Favorability refers to the attraction a person has to an object or another person. Several other traits are associated with favorability but there is extensive research in marketing academia that says the leading two traits that develop between the person and the object are loyalty and trust (Freling, Crosno & Henard, 2011). Favorability is the fuel that leads a person through the various levels of brand loyalty. Building this connection is important but

difficult. The ability for a person to relate to the brand on a human level helps develop that attachment and builds trust (Freling et al., 2011).

Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith, and Colin Cowherd are all identified as controversial commentators while Mike Greenberg is known as a family-friendly commentator. Each has spent many decades cultivating these reputations and building their brands. Aside from being named the most hated man in sports by the Washington

Post, Bayless has said on numerous blogs regarding the books he has written that his intention was to make them as controversial as possible (Tillery, 2009). The Washington

Post created a video montage highlighting the several instances ESPN has suspended or reprimanded Smith titled Stephen A. Smith’s History of Controversial Comments

(Johnson, 2016). ESPN fired Cowherd days after he had accepted a position with Fox

Sports 1 citing the cause for termination as comments Cowherd made regarding

Dominican Republic baseball players’ intelligence (ESPN, 2015). Greenberg, on the other hand, has a different history. He has written several books with advice on how to be a better father and husband. He has also written a children’s book titled MVP: the

Most Valuable Puppy. Parenting blogs hail Greenberg as an important role model for families (Stanford, 2018).

Social Identity Theory

This subsection of the literature review presents and examines the social identity theory (SIT). Tajfel & Turner (1979) first proposed SIT and it quickly became a cornerstone framework in social psychology (Chiang, Zu, Kim, Tan & Tanthiou, 2017).

Though it is a grand theory that makes falsifiability difficult, SIT has many aspects that make it highly relevant to a wide range of different disciplines. SIT helps explain many

of the behavioral phenomenon described in branding studies for the last four decades.

This brief review begins with an overview of the theory and narrows the focus to two constructs: self-efficacy and oppositional brand loyalty.

SIT is a classical theory in social psychology in which previous research across multiple fields have utilized its significant applicability but its uses are far from exhaustive across all ranges of study (Chiang, et al., 2017). One of these is following sports commentators as a brand. While a brand may be thought to only relate to an object such as a soft drink or cosmetic, Kuo & Hou (2017) note that brand communities, or groups that form among followers of a brand, can do so around celebrities and are as likely to be formed around a geographically bound system such as a neighborhood as they are around a national icon such as a celebrity. These sports commentators fall under celebrity status in their industry and thus previous research allows for the framework to be applied.

The theory has been defined in several different adaptations but most definitions are consistent. It is rooted in part of an individual’s self-concept and describes the process of how people who who identify with the same standard relate on that common ground (Chiang et al., 2017). This psychological attachment to a brand will be explored more and is the driving force behind SIT’s explanation for relationships that form among individuals (Kuo & Hou, 2017). The attachment is important for in-group and brand community formation but the focus is not completely lifted from the individual.

While the majority of behavior outcomes that can be predicted using SIT come from the aggregate actions of a community, some study focuses instead on self- efficacy. Self-efficacy is an individual’s belief about their capabilities to perform certain

behaviors or that their actions will affect outcomes (Guan & So, 2016). The motivation to act because of a perceived ability to make a difference surfaces again in emotion study explored in a later subsection. Acting as a change agent is only one of four factors that can contribute to increased self-efficacy. Emotional arousal and vicarious experience are two other internal factors individuals experience and verbal persuasion is an external factor that influences personal self-efficacy development (Guan & So, 2016).

All four factors are critical to this study. Vicarious experience relates to the way an audience member participates in the drama of the sporting event while emotional arousal and verbal persuasion are directly addressed. Self-efficacy is important to consider because the objective of this study is to explain how commentators attract an audience which requires engagement behavior. As an antecedent of behavioral attention, self-efficacy lies at the root of the theory of planned behavior which predicts behavioral outcomes through intentions (Guan & So, 2016).

The final aspect of the SIT that is relevant but not measured in this dissertation is oppositional brand loyalty. Oppositional brand loyalty has not been well studied in psychology, marketing, or any field (Kuo & Hou, 2017). This is defined as a phenomenon in brand communities whose views about rival brands will be negative but also cause members to exhibit antagonistic behaviors toward those out-groups (Kuo &

Hou, 2017). Some of this is evident in the anti-ESPN trend of sports media consumers who favor FS1. It can also be seen on social networking sites. Users will display their displeasure through the frequent use of photos, tags, and posts (Yen, 2015). These audience members can be seen as more than just passive viewers. Once they start interacting with the commentator brand or media outlet, they become stakeholders in

the commercial success. The limited past research that has been done on opposition brand loyalty shows the willingness for a perceived in-group to mobilize against the out- group is as measurable as the increased solidarity that forms within the in-group itself

(Schneider & Sachs, 2015; Kuo & Hou, 2017).

This grand theory framework will be elaborated upon in the next subsection using a narrower focus of study looking at brand loyalty. Sports objects, though loosely defined, have never been thought of as sports entertainment personalities making this study on the forefront of new applications for the SIT and the concepts that follow.

Branding

This section will explore what a sports brand is and how sports brand managers interact with their audiences. Many but not all of the concepts presented will be seen in the Psychological Continuum Model. This section will start at the same place the PCM does, awareness, and present an argument that sports commentators fall under the category of sports objects that act like leagues, players, and teams that have been previously studied. The four concepts examined here are brand awareness, brand personality, brand management, and ultimately, brand loyalty. The theoretical framework is the social identification theory.

Awareness

Before a commentator, or any other object in sports, can develop a relationship with their consuming public that public has to be aware the object exists. The rise of social media has aided television personalities with getting their message out, specifically in the realm of sports. Sports brand managers have stated in a qualitative study that they feel Twitter helps their sports object, in this case a team, build a brand

(Parganas, Anagnostopoulos & Chadwick, 2015). All major North American sporting leagues use Twitter and it is the most dominant conversation with 41% of all tweets being about sports (Parganas et al., 2015). The sheer volume of conversation happening over these platforms, especially Twitter, makes social media impossible to ignore when discussing branding. The stronger a brand is, the more likely a person is to interact with it via a computer in some sense be this on social media, visiting a website, or buying merchandise online through a third-party vendor (Carlson & O’Cass, 2012).

Just as all the major sporting leagues have Twitter, so too do all the commentators who act as the focal point of this study.

The first impression is important. Fans acting as consumers will take a snapshot of an object’s online accounts and use this quick, first view as a guide for how their attitude forms about the brand after awareness (Carlson & O’Cass, 2012). Teams define themselves in this snapshot with existing heuristic cues. One of these is underdog or superstar and teams use the size of their marketshare in the league to do so (Doyle, Filo, McDonald & Funk, 2013). An example of this happened in the 2017

MLB playoffs. The Houston Astros played the Boston Red Sox and the Astros, while hailing from a more populous city and having a slightly better team, was considered the underdogs by many because their baseball marketshare is less than the far more popular Red Sox. The same goes for sports commentators. Clay Travis, whose show

Outkick the Coverage has an incredibly small marketshare compared to talk show competitors on any network, adopts an underdog personality on Twitter.

Twitter has been a focus here but it is by no means the only way in which commentators or other sports object raises awareness about their brand. Sports brands

are observed across a number of different products (Doyle et al., 2013). This is a result of the considerable resources broadcasting companies have. The strength of these parent companies is important to success because the parent company can complement the object in a way that increases the spread of awareness for the lesser known brand (Kunkel, Funk & Hill, 2013). Two examples arise from this. The first is

ESPN’s website hosting a full-length podcast of each First Take show after it airs on its network. The second is Fox Sports 1 simulcasting Colin Cowherd’s “The Herd” show on its television network while also airing it on the company’s XM station, streaming it through company’s mobile app, and partnering with iHeartRadio FM stations to carry it as well. The survey tests for multi-platform reach even though the survey’s original intent was the more classic sense such as Cowherd in radio and television. Developed in 2009, the survey would only be starting to include the possibility of podcasts.

These connections to increase the reach of the commentator’s brand would never be possible without their parent networks. Once an individual is aware of the commentator’s brand, however, it is incumbent on the commentator to deliver a personality that hooks the person as a follower.

Personality

The development of a brand personality can apply to all types of sports objects, such as players and teams, but is strongly relevant to controversial sports commentators. Many sports brands are alike but practioners can develop unique and distinctive sport personalities which is strengthen by their understanding of what other brands already exist (Kang, Bennett & Peachey, 2016). Bayless was dubbed the sports media villain by the Washington Post and XM Radio describes Cowherd’s show as

“thought-provoking sports talk radio.” While both men are controversial in nature, they each define themselves slightly differently. This differentiated and appealing brand personality is a necessity for a sports organization to achieve its financial goals

(Karjaluoto, Munnukka, & Milja, 2016). The PCM goes into greater detail about the different states of what develops between a consumer and the brand but Karjaluoto

(2016) best describes it as a bond. Once this bond is formed, the personality of the brand can strengthen it (Kang et al., 2016). There are a couple of theories that explain how this happens. Identification theory, including social identification theory, claims personality and identification are key components of strengthening brands (Karajaluoto et al., 2016). This is because of an audience member’s own reflective personality. While teams usually have people act as fans, sports objects that people can identify with causes them to act like consumers (Wann et al., 2013). Thus brand personality pushes marketing beyond the utilitarian or functional and becomes an intensely personal experience (Doyle et al, 2013).

This personal experience should not be confused with emotional. The distinct emotions a commentator evokes in a person to build an audience will be examined in this study because building a brand personality in the realm of sports must be cultivated carefully since sports are volatile, unstable, intangible emotionally charged objects

(Karjaluoto et al., 2016). Sports relationships are, indeed, highly emotional and this is not a rejection of that (Doyle et al., 2013). Emotion is not always what an audience is seeking however, especially not in looking for consistencies in a brand. Commentators sometimes stifle their own emotions in order to fit the norms of their brand (Lee Sinden,

2012). This is not done in the name of journalism. There is no unique definition or

general agreement of what journalism is, specifically in sports, but these commentators are not seeing to hold themselves to widely accepted, albeit ill-defined, standards (Licen

& Topic, 2008).

Commentators must become what the audience member wants to be. This is part of the social identification theory. A powerful sports brand gets the consumer to identify with the brand and then can turn that bond into purchasing behavior (Paraganas et al., 2015). One of the many narratives among commentators, as shown by the

Washington Post story on Bayless, is the same as it is for players. This is the story of heroes and villains. NBA all-star LeBron James was labelled a villain for two years of his career after leaving his hometown of Cleveland to seek a championship with the Miami

Heat. He was later branded as the hero when he returned to Cleveland and won a championship there as well. Television significantly contributes to the intensification of these dramatic story lines (Morisette, 2014). A special bond is formed when a person forms an image of the hero in a sports object and projects the same feeling within themselves (Morisette, 2014). This narrative is perpetuated by marketers, a reality the consuming public understands much like the fact the athletes are performing their job as opposed to acting in a drama, but the public ignores these realities for the romance of the story (Morisette, 2014). The idea of the hero is not the only characteristic people internalize when watching sports object brands. They want prestige, morality, ruggedness, sophistication, competence, credibility, and many others as defined by scholars (Kang et al., 2016; Karajaluoto et al, 2016). Audience recruitment and retention then, under the social ID theory, is a product of how effective a sports commentator is to define his own traits and how much those traits line up with those his audience values.

Sports brands reflect more than just what a consumer wants to personally feel.

Brand personality reflects community pride which becomes symbolic among friends and family (Kang et al., 2016). A consumer can talk about a brand personality with descriptions that would be indistinguishable from the person talking about a close friend

(Karjaluoto et al., 2016). Some of the last traits that define brand personality demonstrate this. Along with all the different attributes a person may internalize when associating with a brand, others include non-human traits such as community and group success (Kang et al., 2016).

Management

Sports at all levels, from high school to college and professional, have recognized the need for branding (Paraganas et al., 2015). This burden of brand management then falls on marketers in sports teams but, in the context of media, is mainly the commentator’s responsibility to brand themselves. There is a psychological connection that develops between a consumer and a sports object that gives a manager clues about how to steer the brand (Kunkel et al., 2013). With amount of money transacting due to television contracts and advertising, it is not surprising that academics have now also turned their attention to brand management in addition to those practicing in the industry (Wann et al., 2013). Researchers have started to analyze existing techniques the managers have used to shed light on the way commentators may be presenting themselves. This brand needs to be consistent over a multi-platform reach to be successful (Carlson & O’Cass, 2012). This multi-platform position also stretches in many different markets as discussed prior with the extended presence a parent company can have (Kunkel et al., 2013). Brand managers, especially

those cultivating as commentators, can take several steps enhance their brand, almost all of which start with a recognition of their audience.

Sports commentators are in a unique position to blend judgement and historical knowledge for the purposes of dramatizing their field (Parker & Fink, 2007). This has led sports commentators, and even sports journalists, in some cases to be overlooked by academia but its large commercial impact keeps it relevant in scholarship as well as business (Licen & Topic, 2008). There have been a couple of practices that have worked best for brand managers in the recent years of social media. The root of these strategies is by considering who the audience is along with the key stakeholders

(Kunkel, et al., 2013). The divisiveness of sports naturally creates in-groups and outgroups. Not surprisingly, a person is three times more likely to engage with a sports object if it reinforces his or her own brand allegiance (Wann et al, 2013). Sportscasters do not exclusively need to talk about the subject of sports however. Cowherd’s show routinely includes a political segment as well but, within the context of sports, there are many other causes that sports leagues promote which commentators can as well such as the NFL Breast Cancer Awareness Month (Kang et al., 2016). The many stakeholders need to be considered here. Ultimately, the television consumer is the supreme authority thought league sponsors and advertisers also must be considered

(Kunkel et al., 2013). This type of consumer is exposed to expensive advertising which drives up the price of television contracts and is even prone to purchasing behavior via online platforms if the brand is consistent among platforms (Carlson & O’Cass, 2012).

The commentator does have some control over this consumer. Through framing, a sports commentator, as opposed to a journalist, can make the spectator think they are

seeing something that is happening that is not actually occurring (Parker & Fink, 2007).

This aids the dramatics of sports.

Consumers have been empowered to share their own stories of how they interact with a brand (Paraganas et al., 2015). This has caused social media managers to carefully monitor their own online communication happening away from the content they create which can both help prevent crisis as well as provide cost-free insights into consumer behavior (Paraganas et al., 2015). While some studies are starting to be conducted, the relationship between consumer and how brands need to be built in the sports context is a budding field of academic intrigue (Kunkel et al., 2013).

Loyalty

The goal of all commentators is to develop a loyalty with their public. Funk &

James (2006) calls this allegiance in the PCM. Brand loyalty has some practical and theoretical roots. The social identity theory is rooted in external identification meaning a person will look to others on how to define themselves (Bodet & Bernache, 2011). The

PCM takes this into account, along with several other theories, to develop its understand of how brand associations become brand loyalties (Kunkel et al., 2013).

Even with this model, there is still a gap in existing literature when it comes to brand loyalty.

This phrase is used interchangeably with consumer loyalty both in previous work and for the purpose of this study (Karajaluoto et al., 2016). Once thought to be a product of consumer satisfaction, brand loyalty has seen many different components when studied in the sports context since the highly emotional nature of sports attachment is not directly correlated with satisfaction (Bodet & Bernache, 2011). There

are several different ways to quantify brand loyalty but one is through repeated purchasing behavior. The true loyal customer is one who regularly purchases the brand’s product as well as showing strong positive attitudinal trends toward to brand

(Karajaluoto et al., 2016). The existing awareness that leads to internal and external associations, such as the authenticity, ruggedness, and competency discussed before, are key factors in predicting brand loyalty (Doyle et al., 2013). This identification can give the public a sense of belonging that solidifies the loyalty (Karajaluoto, et al., 2016).

Emotions

Discrete Emotion

Part of predicting and explaining audience effects in response to debate programing is to understand the emotions evoked when watching it. The specific study of these for the purpose of this study is a concept in psychology known as discrete emotions. Discrete emotions, such as happiness, fear, or despair, are powerful feelings nearly universally felt by everyone providing an opportunity for useful information to be obtained (Lazarus, 2000). Discrete emotion theory has been the guiding principle for many models that predict attitude formation and motivated behavioral intention, both of which are important to the content of this study (Lazarus, 2000). Whereas the complementing form of debate dated back to Aristotle and the Ancient Greeks, emotion study does have roots in history though not as primitive as debate. Charles Darwin was one of the pioneers of emotion study who tried to classify different emotions to understand behavior (Colombetti, 2009). The study of pure emotion has ebbed and flowed in academia ever since. Its major resurgence, however, coincides with an opposite trend in television study. The 1980s brought a strong push for emotion study in

psychology while television media departments across the nation folded under immense pressure that TV was perpetuating evil into society (Moors, Ellsworth, Scherer & Frijida,

2013). Just as Darwin had sought to do, traditional study of classifying emotions to understand the behavioral effects led to discrete emotion theory (Colombetti, 2009).

Two of the categories to arise were approach emotions and avoidance emotions which describe the behavior that follows when each are experienced (DeSteno, Petty, Rucker,

Wegener & Braverman, 2004).

Though emotion study does trace its history to the 1870s, no single clear definition has been agreed upon (Rivers, Brackett, Katulak & Salovey, 2007; Mauss &

Robinson, 2009). There are some consistent components of each definition even if the overall explanation is different. The first is that emotions are psycho-physiological phenomenon meaning they can be measured through physical reactions in our bodies such as shortness of breath and pupil dilation as well as measured psychological metrics such as gaging the intention to perform a behavior (Lazarus, 2000; Nabi, 1999).

Facial cues and self-reporting surveys are also used to determine reactions. One metric consistent in many definitions is that intensity is a popular component to measuring strength of emotion (Lazarus, 2000; Lee Sinden, 2012; Nabi, 2003; Lee & Lang, 2009).

Three other components that are more disputed than intensity but still used in emotion research are occurrence, form, and duration (Rivers, Brackett, Katulak & Salovey,

2007). All four help build an emotion profile of an audience cultivated by a controversial commentator, and from the variance in intensity of certain emotions depending on the profile, behavioral intention can then be predicted (Verduyn, Mechelen & Frederix,

2012). Behavior intention prediction helps target advertising which perpetuates the

business and allows companies like FS1 to compete with industry giants like ESPN.

Because of the before mentioned dichotomy that showed a spike in emotion study at the same time television studies scaled back, Pantti (2010) argues that little scholarly work has been conducted on if tele-journalists are aware or care about the emotional effect their program has on its audience. This study takes the concept of approach emotions and avoidance emotions and applies them to audience effects.

Anger

Approach emotions attract a person to action. Most commonly this is interaction with the provocateur of the emotion evoker. Approach emotions are not synonymous with what would be categorized as good emotions. Anger, for example, is an approach emotion.

Anger has been defined as a person perceiving ill-will toward him or her and the reaction to rectify this confrontation (Lazarus, 2000). This emotional spike of anger can lead to positive effects such as increased memory recall but also have negative reactions such as violent physical or verbal outbursts (Nabi, 2003). Memory recall is not the only positive effect anger can cause. Studies have shown it motivates action in response to potential danger and to retain or regain control when an individual perceives he or she has lost it (DeSteno et al., 2004; Verduyn et al., 2012). The idea that an audience could control what they see on television may seem like a stretch, especially when considering such grand theories such as gatekeeping and one-way communication, but the rise of social media has created a more two-way environment in television watching. Just as politics opened the floor to the masses with townhall style

debates, debate style shows such as First Take have encouraged this as well with the

“#embracedebate” hashtag.

Regardless of how the sentiment of the action is categorized, both positive and negative behavior in response to anger are approaches to fixing the conflict. This study tests this explanation of emotion-induced behavior in audiences of commentators that intentionally anger their viewers. This concept is derived from political science, and some political research has also been done on emotions. Audiences have reported feeling high-threat levels with common regularity while watching debates both in message content and in conflict between debaters (Cho & Choy, 2011). This high-threat sparks anger which motivates audiences to seek a correction through the action of voting.

Anger must have a clear conclusion to an outcome that the participant deems as threat reduction for action to occur (Veling, Ruys, Aarts, 2012). Social media interaction may be this outlet. Another trait of anger action is mirroring meaning that a receiver is more likely to react in the same kind of style as the sender (Lee & Lang, 2009).

Following this framework, an audience of a debate show that feels anger would seek to correct this threat through commenting on social media and likely do so in a similar anger fashion. A content analysis would reveal this.

The foundations of anger are the same in everyone but some actions are amplified in certain demographics. Men are more likely to show anger and suppress sadness while women have shown to experience the opposite even if it does not show

(Rivers et al., 2007). Younger people are also more prone to act than the elderly

(Blanchard-Fields and Coats, 2008). Both of these findings suggest anger will be

intensified in the target demographic for sports entertainment, which is young males.

Blanchard-Fields and Coats (2008) also concluded that younger people were more likely to take proactive action as opposed to passive action to ensure the threat is neutralized. Proactive action in this young male demographic is usually verbal (Rivers et al., 2007). This could be repeat interaction on social media toward a controversial commentator.

Disgust

Disgust, unlike anger which is an approach emotion, is an avoidance emotion.

This means an individual experiencing disgust will not act in a way to rectify it but rather ignore the source of the disgust. Disgust is similar to anger in that both are typically measured in intensity, both psychologically in self-reporting or physiologically in facial cues or other signs (Miller & Leshner, 2007). The information gathered from these measurements has been used to predict audience behavior in focus groups testing television shows such as fiction crime drama and even the nightly news (Miller &

Leshner, 2007). Though no prior studies could be found where it was applied to controversial commentators in sports entertainment media, previous research does suggest that this would be an effective metric for predicting audience engagement cross-genres.

Disgust has three properties that are consistent in studies where it is used: it acts as an avoidance emotion, it does not keep the receiver’s full attention, and the memory retention of the message is worse than it is with almost every other emotion (Nabi,

2003). Commentators often repeat themselves on a single message possibly for this reason. Controversial commentator Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports 1, previously with

ESPN, has repeated for a year that Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook is the Kanye West of the NBA because of his off the court actions often portraying immature behavior. Cowherd dubbed the 2016-2017 MVP “Kanye Westbrook” with such regularity that a rival network, CBS Sports, reported the story saying, “Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd has never been shy about sharing his opinion on anything and he reminded the world of that fact on Tuesday while discussing the Oklahoma City

Thunder point guard” (Bohlin, 2016).

This example, which potentially could disgust fans of Oklahoma City and the nationally known rapper as degrading, does illustrate an important aspect of how commentators employ strategies to retain and engage audiences. Comparisons dominate social interaction with an individual wanting to have a favorable self-view in the comparison (Bartsch, 2012). This is true for one-way and two-way communication.

Social identification theory also touches on this. This means, according to Bartsch, that a person would tune into a commentator with the expectation that the professional’s comments will be so disgusting that the individual’s own opinion will be validated by comparison. Though this approach comes with great risk, the strategy explains some of the rhetoric used by the most controversial personalities. A second by-product of disgust has some similar effects to anger. In rare cases, the receiver of the message is so disgusted that it caused moral outrage which then leads to motivated action but this is not the normal happenstance and the motivation is much weaker than its anger emotional counterpart (Herz & Hinds, 2013). Overall though, academics generally agree that disgust is fully an avoidance emotion.

Political Behavior

Political science researchers have explored these topics before and provide a foundation for further study. Just as the masses act in a way that supports political candidates, this study then applies those principles to controversial commentators in sports entertainment media. The main focus of this section will be to present theoretical concepts in the political science discipline and then review case studies performed on

Rush Limbaugh, one of the most famous political media controversial personalities.

Television political coverage, just like print news journalism, strives toward ideal objectivism (Licen & Topic, 2008). While the overall coverage is meant to be objective, individual reporters that comprise that coverage are getting increasingly partisan.

Statham (2007) warns against this by differentiating between reporters putting stories into context, sometimes called second-level agenda setting, which is a responsibility of good coverage and crossing a line of perpetuating bias which is a bad practice. Despite this objectivity standard, modern news media outlets covering politics have been branded as partisan. The perception of a media outlet leaning left or right on the political spectrum calls into question source credibility with an audience. The sports networks have adopted the personas of their parent companies. Fox Sports 1 hired Jason

Whitlock, an unabashedly conservative sports commentator, and Clay Travis who sells shirts that read “MSESPN” tying the network competitor to the left-leaning news outlet

MSNBC. Fox Sports president Jamie Horowitz was even dismissed in July 2017 for alleged sexual harassment just a few months after long time Fox News commentator

Bill O’Reilly was let go for the same reason (Rose, 2017).

Part of source credibility is the network but this study focuses on the individual commentator. In politics, many factors surround the on-air talent’s ability to cultivate an audience. The most superficial of influencers is outward appearance. Several studies do suggest that a candidate must look like an audience’s perception of an expert on the subject to gain source credibility with the masses (Lenz & Lawson, 2011). This holds especially true for the least involved. People who are uninformed but watch more TV than the national average are disproportionately more likely to cast a ballot on the way a candidate looks (Lenz & Lawson, 2011). Lastly Lenz & Lawson (2011) states that people who find a candidate more attractive believe that candidate has a better chance of winning which could also influence a following among a commentator independent of his or her controversial opinions. While Lenz and many other studies corroborate that appearance can be an influencer on attitude, there is little evidence to suggest it is solely enough to lead to action (Hayes, 2009). For example, if an individual finds a presidential candidate attractive then he or she may think the candidate has the best chance of winning even if the individual does not cast a vote for that candidate or at all.

The attitude is influenced but not the action.

Aside from outward appearance, personality traits about a television personality also recruit and retain viewers. These traits, viewed on a sentiment scale as favorable and unfavorable, have been shown to have a positive effect on building an audience if the public views the commentator as favorable though the unfavorable traits do not have the full negative effect of turning away viewers but rather do nothing to help gain them (Hayes, 2005). Examples of these traits vary widely. In sports entertainment media between the two competing networks, the traits of the programs have changed.

ESPN has retained the debate show First Take but doubled-down on family friendly styles with a Mike Greenberg morning show while Fox Sports 1 begins its second season of Embrace Debate 2.0 in fall 2017 with Skip Bayless, Jason Whitlock, and

Colin Cowherd. Ratings have not been kind to the family-friendly styles of programing in sports. Greenberg’s previous show did attract a profitable audience and he might be able to return to ratings relevance if he finds the right topics. Hays (2005) suggests that candidates’ ownership over certain traits are subject to change over time. One way of viewing how audiences will react to commentators is to present a case study that looks at how audiences have in other fields. Political entertainment media makes this possible.

Rush Limbaugh

What this study wants to examine is the same practice that talk show radio host

Rush Limbaugh has been employing for decades. This form of controversial commentating has led him to be named by Talkers Magazine as the greatest talk show host of all time (Brown, 2017). Sports commentators are not viewed as journalists and their audiences allow for subjectivity more than they would from a traditional news anchor (Licen & Topic, 2008). This also applies to Limbaugh. He has become both a broadcaster and a political player but this rise to superstardom has also detached him of any standards of credibility in his pursuit to inform and persuade (Larson, 1997). This departure from typical reporting is not the only way in which his history or the academic coverage of it relates to the expanding field of sports entertainment personalities.

Aspects of the branding literature are never explicitly stated as crossover with how Limbaugh has been studied but the concepts are nearly identical. The main

similarity is that the personality’s goal is to dramatize reality (Brown, 2017). Limbaugh does this through palpable anger (Brown, 2017). He transforms life as theater to the view that life is theater and his audience joins him for the dramatic story (Brown, 2017).

A second similarity is the importance of branding across a multi-platform approach.

Limbaugh’s peak influence comes from his presence on radio but also in print and especially on television mediums (Larson, 1997). Lastly the audience he cultivates is identical to that who consumes sports media as well. Over 50% of a sample audience scored high on a public affairs test meaning, like sports fans, the audience is highly involved in the topic (Bennett, 2009). These also tend to be educated, white males with one main difference emerging in that, like sports, Limbaugh’s audience was predominantly younger in the 1990s but became increasingly geared toward the elderly after 2001 while the sports audience continues to appeal to younger viewers (Bennett,

2009).

There is no evidence to suggest Limbaugh can change his audience’s voting behavior in any significant margin. This was evident from Operation Chaos in which the host encouraged Republicans in open primary states to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008 to prolong the Democrat nomination process because she trailed Barack Obama

(Stephenson, 2010). No measurable evidence suggested this happened. This does not mean Limbaugh is powerless in his ability to influence but the standard has to be lowered from voting behavior to consumption behavior. He can persuade an audience to listen to his show repetitively even if he fails to spur them to action. That is the focus of this study in sports media.

CHAPTER 3 METHOD

Content Analysis

Content analysis is one method used in this study. Content analysis has a long history in communication studies as well as sociology and psychology (Elo & Kyngas,

2007). When used properly, this research method can be an effective data reducer

(Stemler, 2014). This leads to providing an empirical basis for monitoring shifts in public opinion or the national conversation (Stemler, 2014). It is an objective means of describing and quantifying a host of information in communication (Elo & Kyngas,

2007). This study will employ content analysis to analyze the social media conversation in response to sports entertainment television personalities.

Twitter is the only social media platform that was used. While all social media is important, Twitter is a large community for sports fans with 41% of all Tweets in 2013 being about sports (Paraganas et al., 2015). The objective of looking at this online conversation is to identify emotion indicators in the tweets. This technique is called sampling units, which is one of three styles of performing a content analysis with recording units and context units as the other two (Stemler, 2014). Sampling units take a variety of different forms but generally are statements or passages that make up a whole (Stemler, 2014). In this case, the sample unit is a single tweet, which can reveal much about the conversation but represents a small snapshot of a much larger discussion that would be nearly impossible to analyze in its entirety. One challenge of content analysis is to keep the integrity of the data because the research method is so flexible (Elo & Kyngas, 2007).

Preserving the integrity of the data takes a recognition of its limitations along with an understanding of reliability and agreement. The first step a researcher takes to maximize the credibility of his or her data is to provide a strong theoretical framework that helps predict or explain results (Stemler, 2014). The second step is to distinguish between reliability and agreement. Agreement is what a research team measures in the study, reliability is what the team can infer from the results (Krippendorf, 2014). When both concepts are done well, a study can be easily replicated further strengthening the results (Krippendorf, 2014). Reliability can be discussed in terms of intercoder results, in which multiple coders compare their findings in hopes that they arrived independently at the same conclusions from analyzing the data (Stemler, 2014). This can be calculated in a number of ways. Reporting reliabilities uses four indices for comparison: percent agreement, Scott’s pi, Cohen’s kappa, and Krippendorff’s alpha (Krippendorf, 2004).

Some of these are more conservative estimates than others. This dissertation does not use agreement because there is no codebook. Instead, it only counts the frequency of words used but this overview has been included to explain the range of information a content analysis can provide.

The last quality of a content analysis is the data itself. The spectrum of user- generated created data rates from excellent to abuse and spam (Agichetein, Castillo,

Donato, Gionis & Mishne, 2008). Social media helps tip this balance toward excellent.

The early 2000s marked the turning point where the web became less of a community on which content is consumed and there was a sudden rise in content that was created, a trend that continues today (Agichetein et al., 2008). This is why content analysis studies have seen steady growth in the last decade especially in many fields but

particularly journalism, sociology, and psychology (Elo & Kyngas, 2007). Content analysis, however, does have its limitations so this study will complement it with survey research.

Survey

Survey research provides another element to the study. This will be a self- reporting questionnaire based on the PCM presented in Funk & James (2001) and

Bauer, Stokburger-Sauer & Exler (2008). The objective of the survey will be to quantify brand loyalties with the sports commentators. Often times, surveys are done within the confines of the researcher’s own convenient sample which results in a homogeneous sample of young, educated students from families of fair socio-economic standings

(Behrend, Sharek, Meade & Wiebe, 2011). One way around this, which this study will employ, is to utilize crowdsourcing. Key components that define crowdsourcing are that the participants are paid, they are recruited online from any geographic location, and they are hired for a clearly defined task (Behrend et al., 2011). One example of a crowdsourcing service is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, which this study used.

There are some threats to the integrity of survey research. Item construction and response bias are two constructs a survey writer must strongly consider (Rindfleisch,

Malter, Ganesan & Moorman, 2008). Using a strong model as a guide helps reduce both these threats. This will primarily be the PCM discussed at the end of this chapter.

Two other concerns, common method variance (CMI) and causal inference (CI), also arise. CMI relates back to the homogeneous college student population and is best defined as error that arises in too much data from a single source (Rindfleisch et al.,

2008). CI cautions researcher against inferring too much from the data collected. This

can lead to harmful generalizations that stretch the truth of what is discovered.

Crowdsourcing is an effective way to combat CMI and enhance the chance that the correlations that do arise from the data are explainable by theory. An examination of recent studies that have used crowdsourcing techniques found that the strategy is equally as or slightly more effective than using a university sample (Behrend et al.,

2011). Respondents from the general public as opposed to a bounded system such as a university will also be a better reflection of the content analysis which will take tweets from the public as well. These two methods combined are called triangulation.

Many doctoral dissertations have utilized triangulation and it is a popular form of study among textbooks as well (Jick, 1979). The strength is in the dual approach.

Survey analysis results become more generalizable in the qualitative context of content analysis (Jick, 1979). This approach does have some shortcomings. Replication can be difficult depending on the extent to which the results are generalized (Jick, 1979).

However, its advantages outweigh its threats and the research shows this dual method approach will ultimately strengthen the findings of this study.

Psychological Continuum Model

The Psychological Continuum Model created by Funk & James (2001) will be the primary source of scholarship used to develop this study’s survey. The PCM explains the levels of psychological attachment to a sports object through the concept of branding presented in the literature review. This begins at the basic level of awareness.

The PCM attempts to answer two critical questions: how and to what extend does a person connect to a brand? This would be vital to demonstrating how a commentator

cultivates an audience. Given its highly competitive nature in sports, differentiating oneself through branding becomes of paramount importance (Bauer et al., 2008).

This study is different from other studies because of the subject in sports it examines. Previous literature focuses on the bond development between fan and team, player, coach, or league. The bond between audience member and sports personality does not yet exist. Knowing the broad use of the PCM in the vast, diverse sports universe, Funk & James (2001) specifically used language that would allow the model to study a range of things. They call this object-related connection. The PCM focuses on the psychological relationship between an individual and this sports object, which they provide examples of being a team or a league, but do allow for this object to be used interchangeably with any brand in the sports industry (Funk & James, 2001).

Figure 3-1. The PCM

Structure

The content analysis portion is an examination of anger speech in response tweets. The framework is provided in Robin Nabi’s 2002 analysis of the difference between disgusted and anger speech. She identifies five qualities of anger speech in which a person responds for the following reasons: feels offended on behalf of others,

feels personally offended, feels lied to or cheated, feels rumor or gossip is spread, and feels someone has been treated unfairly or with disrespect (Nabi, 2002). This study matches these emotions with a previously established sentiment lexicon from the

National Research Council of Canada and identifies feelings through the word choice both from the audience and from the commentators themselves.

The PCM is the model but the survey questions are derived from a different study. These stem from Bauer et al, 2008 which studied the bond between a public and a sports object in two frames. The first was psychological loyalty to the brand. The second was behavioral loyalty. These two are at the heart of what this survey aims to accomplish and is why it serves as the structured framework. Though the questions need to be altered some to fit the sports object of controversial commentator as opposed to sport or team, the following established survey (which can be found in the appendix) is based on these statements:

Figure 3-2. Operationalization of psychological commitment

Figure 3-3. Operationalization of behavior loyalty

Data Collection

The content analysis is a qualitative snapshot of the online conversation. It examined 3,200 tweets of four Twitter personalities. Two of these will be from ESPN and two from FS1, Stephen A. Smith and Mike Greenberg from ESPN and Skip Bayless and Colin Cowherd from FS1. A random date generator selected the day from after May

2018, one month after Greenberg’s show Get Up has aired, and then the tweets were gathered.

The tweets are collected using an application called MassMine. Developed at the

University of Florida, MassMine is a massive data collection tool targeted at social networking sites. The software’s full potential can be unlocked once authorization codes issued by the developer pages of some of the largest social networking sites are entered. These SNSs include Twitter, Tumblr, Wikipedia, and more. This study only uses Twitter since sports talk is so prevalent on the micro-blogging site. MassMine has several features utilized through command line code such as searching by trending

topic, keywords, or user handle. The tweets can be collected in real time or within a past window of time. MassMine can collect up to 3,200 tweets per search.

Once the tweets were collected, the goal was to analyze them for language that indicated certain emotions, particularly anger and disgust. The National Research

Council of Canada provides a sentiment lexicon that does this categorization. There were 695 words classified as anger and 510 that signified disgust. This was done through obtaining the text of each of the thousands of tweets, uploading them to Excel, then running a COUNTif formula between the column of the anger and disgust words against the column with the tweet. This counted the frequency of the words through computer power reducing the amount of human error that could occur from comparing a list of over 500 words to one of 3,200 tweets. Because of this computer involvement, only the principle researcher was used as a coder who wrote the formula and initiated the function.

MassMine collected 3,200 tweets from each commentator as well as 3,200 tweets toward each commentator. This means the commentator’s personal user handle was used in the tweet. In total, 25,600 tweets were collected and compared against the lexicon. Much of this data is not fully conclusive in social science standards but counting the frequencies does provide a look into both the conversation at the commentator and the messages sent from the commentator on a large scale.

A survey was conducted to explore evidence into other concepts than emotions such as brand loyalty. The main objective of the survey is to measure if people are aware of the commentators, and if they are, to understand the depth of the bond that has developed. Levels of the PCM can be determined through the responses. This is

not the first study to do this. Bauer et al. (2008) did not directly relate their survey to the

PCM but the model was recognized in their study. The same steps to brand loyalty in

Bauer et al. are also present in the PCM making it the ideal survey structure for this study.

The survey responses were collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing tool. There were a total of 307 surveys submitted but upon removing some that did not qualify, roughly 287 respondents were counted. Steps to qualifying for the survey were both meeting certain demographics, such as domestically located within the United States, meeting MTurk standards of a master distinction, which lends more credibility to the response, and acknowledging that the person is a sports entertainment fan with knowledge of personalities on ESPN and Fox Sports 1.

Hypotheses

H1a: All commentators will use more anger language than disgust language in

tweets.

H1b: A person tweeting to a personality will use language consistent with the

discrete emotion anger a majority of the time.

This would be consistent with the idea that anger is an approach emotion that motivates a person to action. This study’s contention is social media provides an outlet for that and this content analysis guided by this research question will serve as a qualitative glance into if that is true in the actual conversation.

H2a: A commentator with a high favorability will have a low number of anger

words sent to them.

H2b: A commentator with a low favorability will have a high number of anger

words sent to them.

This pair of hypotheses posits that a commentator with a family-friendly reputation, Greenberg, will have a higher favorability rating than his controversial counterparts. This does not imply that controversial commentators must be unfavorable but rather that they will be less favorable than Greenberg based on media coverage presented in this study.

H2c: Mike Greenberg will have the highest level of favorability followed by Colin

Cowherd. Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith will have the lowest levels of

favorability.

The examples described in the definitions section help formulate this hypothesis.

The final part of the survey asks the respondent to rate each commentator on a favorability scale from 0-100. Because of Cowherd’s moderate personality, on his own network he is branded as the most interesting man in sports while another commentator is branded as the most provocative, this hypothesis predicts that his favorability will be higher than Bayless or Smith but not as high as Greenberg. This also is the reason why the final two hypotheses distinguish between Cowherd separately than Bayless and

Smith.

H3: Controversial commentators Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith will have

respondents who show higher levels of PCM than Colin Cowherd or Mike

Greenberg.

What the dissertation wants to uncover is if a controversial commentator can build a loyal audience. This hypothesis directly addresses that question and asserts that

the two most controversial commentators will show high levels of brand loyalty developed with an audience even if their overall favorability is not as high.

H4: Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith will have the largest percentage of

respondents who say they have purchased goods or services that are advertised

on their shows.

Network executives want to deliver tangible results to their advertisers. The ad prices that determine how much a show can charge per spot and ultimately determine the success of the show is typically decided purely on the size of the audience. While ratings are important, this hypothesis predicts that a more loyal following will purchase products advertised on their favorite shows because of their connection with the commentator. This would mean a commentator who does not have the largest audience, Colin Cowherd for example, might still be able to justify high advertising prices because his show’s following is more likely to follow through on the messages they hear.

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS

The methods were two-part. The first was a content analysis of tweets from users to the commentators compared with a lexicon that identifies anger and disgust categorized words. The average survey respondent group was n=270 +/- 3 respondents depending on the question. Participants were 42.76% 18-34 years old and 50.53% 35-

54 years old. Males edged female respondents 66.5%-33.1%. The second part was a survey to determine self-reporting of true sports fans’ opinions of the commentators and measure the level of loyalty held toward them. The data reveal clear trends, some that were predicted in the hypotheses, and others that arose as unintended findings.

Hypotheses Tested

The first hypothesis predicted that all commentators would use more anger than disgust language and that a person tweeting at a personality would use language consistent with the discrete emotion of anger a majority of the time. The evidence suggests both are confirmed. As shown in the table, each of the four commentators had more tweets containing anger words than disgust words usually by a margin of approximately 2-to-1.

Table 4-1. Frequency of emotional charged words in commentators’ tweets Commentator/Emotion Bayless Cowherd Smith Greenberg Anger 2221 1859 1997 1120 Disgust 1213 364 716 483

Skip Bayless of FS1’s Undisputed received both the highest number of anger words and disgust words tweeted at him over the last 3,200 tweets with him tagged.

The high amount of anger words shows he is inciting an approach emotion in his audience and, even with topping the most disgust words too, he is still getting social

media interaction. Mike Greenberg of the new show Get Up on ESPN, however, is drawing the fewest amount of anger tweets by a considerable gap. Get Up’s ratings continue to slide. While the audience numbers do remain slightly ahead of Undisputed and The Herd, Greenberg’s show posts abysmal ratings for airing on the main ESPN network and would likely not be beating either of the FS1 shows if it aired on ESPN2.

The assumption behind the hypothesis was that anger is an emotionally charged approach feeling that gets audience members to interact with the commentator on social media in a psychological attempt to rectify wrongs they may feel the commentator has committed. The data shows that Bayless outpaced Cowherd and Smith had more anger language directed at him than Greenberg with both Bayless and Smith’s audience sizes attracting more viewers than their network counterparts. This fact, in addition to the low numbers for the slumping Get Up host, suggest that the angrier a person is with the commentator on Twitter, the higher the commentator’s ratings will be.

Table 4-2. Emotion frequency from people tweeting at commentators Commentator/Emotion Bayless Cowherd Smith Greenberg Anger 3,151 1,211 1,474 1,419 Disgust 1,320 641 743 654

The table clearly demonstrates that Bayless leads the pack in speech that is categorized in both anger and disgust. This is not a surprise given his persona but the numbers to reveal that the other three commentators are all about the same. This social media presence is not consistent with the brands they attempt to develop on television.

Smith would be much closer to Bayless in the anger language and Greenberg would be closer to or trailing Cowherd instead of just a few words off from Smith.

Despite this, the survey data overall reveal mixed results for Mike Greenberg. He was the most favored commentator when given the options of him and his counterparts.

In fact, ESPN’s commentators did better than their FS1 counterparts in general with

Cowherd even slipping below the fifth option for choosing an undefined commentator not preselected. One such survey respondent wrote in that former NBA star now TNT basketball analyst Charles Barkley was the favorite. Barkley made headlines during the same month as Get Up premiered when he suggested that he would punch current NBA player Draymond Green in the face if they met. The data continues to suggest that

Greenberg’s family-friendly approach is doing well.

The third section of the second hypothesis predicts commentator favorability which was asked to each respondent. The results showed only part of the hypothesis to be confirmed.

Table 4-3. Commentator Favorability

Greenberg is the most favorable commentator scoring not just the highest by over 10 points but also as the only commentator to score over a 50 which was the halfway on the scale. The hypothesis is not fully confirmed because Cowherd’s favorability is not quite as high as Bayless’s though all three controversial commentators are close which suggests labeling all three of them in the same category is appropriate.

Figure 4-1. Statistically significant finding

The figure above shows that with a p=0.14 we can reject the null hypothesis that the distribution of people who have often watched their favorite commentator on TV is the same across categories of the commentators. This means there are statistically significant differences among the way respondents self-reported watching the commentator on television.

Table 4-4. Commentator viewing preference

This table shows the crosstabs of the frequencies in which people reported watching their personality on television. Aside from Mike Greenberg receiving the most amount of responses, which is consistent with him also being named the most favorable commentator, his responses are almost all in the top two categories of favorability. This is meaningful for several reasons that are detailed in the discussion section that follows but the most important distinction to note is the difference between Cowherd and

Greenberg’s strong favorability. Though both commentators are primarily radio hosts that have programs simulcast on television, the data is clear that Greenberg has a much higher television following than Cowherd. Even with Get Up’s poor overall audience

results by ESPN standards, the ratings data show Get Up well ahead of The Herd,

Cowherd’s television program.

The third hypothesis centered around the psychological continuum model. The hypothesis predicted that the more controversial commentators would have audience members show higher loyalty even if overall favorability was lower. Several questions in the survey were designed to test this.

Table 4-5. Respondents committed to the commentator

This table reveals a lot of information despite the limitations descriptive statistics have. The first is that Greenberg and Bayless tie for the highest percentage of people who agree they are committed to them (54%) though Greenberg has both a higher percentage of people who strongly agree, as opposed to most people who just somewhat agree with the statement for Bayless, and the number of responses again reflect Greenberg’s overall dominant favorability. Neither Smith nor Cowherd achieve over a 50% committed population. The news gets worse for Smith though. He is the only commentator to have almost as many people who somewhat disagree (17) they are committed to him than who somewhat agree (19). Each of the three other commentators have over double the number of somewhat agree responses in their commitment. Regardless of the commitment people show toward the commentator, it does not translate into interaction on social media.

Table 4-6. Low social media interaction

None of the commentators fared well when asked if their audience interacted with them on social media. No other prompt received as many strongly disagree selections as social media including that someone had bought merchandise from advertisers based on the commentator show. This means someone was more likely to support a third-party advertiser directly than be exposed to more advertising by interacting with a commentator on social media. Some of the descriptive statistics did confirm what may be assumed to be common sense predictions however. Men were more likely to say they have interacted with a commentator on social media than women. Also, what could be considered good news for advertisers and the future of sports entertainment programing, the younger demographics were more likely to have interacted than their older counterparts. Because the interactions on social media are reported so low, however, results are hard to generalize. It remains unknown if anger is the driving force to get respondents to act on social media or if it is motivated by loyalty.

There may be a small contingency of fans of any commentator that does post on social media because they presumably rank in the top two levels of the PCM but that group is not measurable in this study. Furthermore, there is not statistically significant difference among the four commentators that would suggest that if more of the audience had been posting on social media, that the differences in posting would vary much from likability.

The most likable commentator, Greenberg, would get the most interaction while

Cowherd which the data does show to have the least amount of interactions, would continue to get the least.

Though the survey data concluded the assertion was unsubstantiated, the content analysis does reveal some notable trends in the posts that users are sending to the commentators. As shown in the table at the beginning of the section, Bayless and

Smith received the most anger language when people were tweeting at them.

The final portion of this results section looks at the Psychological Continuum

Model and determines where respondents fall on the spectrum of brand loyalty to each commentator. There are four levels to the PCM.

Evidence of Psychological Continuum Model

Figure 4-2. The PCM revisited

The first is awareness. Because the survey included a criteria question requiring the respondent to be a sports fan to continue, the likelihood a respondent would be aware of any commentator was greatly increased. Even if a respondent chose the response that none of the commentators were their favorites, that does not discount the possibility that they were aware of the commentator but not a fan. A “none of these” response does, however, discount a person from reaching the next level on the PCM.

The second level is attraction. Several questions demonstrate an attraction to the commentator. These include asking for respondents to choose their favorite and questions that measure the commitment to that commentator. The results show some clear trends in what people favor. The majority of respondents favored commentators on ESPN which is consistent with the viewership the network receives over its competition. The commitment was higher among ESPN announcers as well though, despite having the lowest favorability, Colin Cowherd on FS1 did receive the most committed ratings among his few fans.

Table 4-7. Commitment revisited

Attachment is the third level of the PCM. While attraction has some aspects of intrinsic features, attachment internalizes these feelings even more. A couple of questions represent this in the survey. The main question that demonstrates this is if the long-term success of the commentator is important to the respondent.

Table 4-8. The importance of long-term commentator success

Greenberg once again led his peers in the category. His 20% of respondents that strongly agreed that his long-term success was important to them was more than any other commentator; all of whom failed to gain more than 10% in the same category.

Even with Greenberg’s separation from the pack, the numbers for somewhat agree or strongly agree with long-term success are low with all but Greenberg’s followers responding directly at a 50% agree rate. The question explores a person’s intrinsic feeling toward the commentator but the results show this level of loyalty is difficult for the commentators to reach with their fans.

The final level of the PCM is allegiance. The defining characteristic of allegiance is its consistency. Thus, three questions were asked specifically to determine if this could be achieved. These were if a friend could sway an opinion on a commentator, if a commentators’ popularity affected commitment, and most explicitly if there is anything that can change a respondents’ loyalty to the commentator. Each question revealed a clear trend in how the people felt about their commentator. With each question, true allegiance to the commentator eroded.

Table 4-9. Commentator loyalty influenced by peers

Table 4-10. Commentator loyalty influenced by popularity

Table 4-11. Commentator absolute loyalty

The data show little consistency in commitment to the commentator. However, signs of allegiance do exist. While the numbers strongly agreeing with the commitment to the commentator decline steadily as the language gets more intrinsic to the person, some of the responding population does stay true to select commentators. The trend here, though, is not fully congruent with what has happened at the previous levels.

Stephen A. Smith had the highest percentage of people who said that nothing could change their commitment, which was the strongest worded response to denote the highest level of loyalty. Skip Bayless, who had hovered around 11% commitment, dropped only to 6% while Greenberg’s commitment plummeted and Cowherd’s failed to register. This is a meaningful shift from what the numbers had been showing. The commentators who retained the highest levels of consistency in the allegiance were

Smith and Bayless despite Greenberg showing the most likability and commitment in the first three levels.

Another statistically significant finding has to do with the medium on which a program is aired. The hypotheses were written to determine differences in ESPN and

FS1 commentators, debate and family-friendly commentators, and different emotional reactions audience members feel when watching the commentators. What the data reveal that was not hypothesized was any measurable differences in primarily radio personalities versus primarily television personalities.

Figure 4-3. Commentator multi-platform

The Kruskal-Wallis test that rejects the null hypothesis that says the distribution of having listened to the commentator over more than platform is the same. This means that some of the distribution shows statistically significant differences. A closer look at the crosstabs shows suggests some meaningful conclusions can be drawn.

Table 4-12. Commentator multi-platform preference

Many of the commentators’ audience members agree that they listen to them over more than one platform. However, very few people disagree with the statement for

Cowherd and Greenberg, the two commentators who got their start in radio before getting their shows simulcast on television as well. Stephen A. Smith does still have a

radio show on XM, which is why his numbers likely remain high, but Skip Bayless is almost exclusively on television except for replays of his show on the internet via

YouTube videos and podcasts.

CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION

The sports entertainment television industry has seen some noteworthy changes in the last three years. The networks of ESPN and its upstart challenger Fox Sports 1 have both had to navigate a constantly changing media landscape. FS1, which initially had been built to compete with ESPN, shifted its strategy in 2016 to Embrace Debate

2.0 which empowered controversial commentators to speak their unbridled opinions in hopes of attracting viewers. This study was one of the first academic tests to see if the strategy will work. The answer was determined through ratings, through survey responses, and through a Twitter content analysis.

Industry Analysis

Many key points about the sports media industry were addressed in the study.

The first is audience retention. To understand what the data say about a commentator’s ability to retain an audience and what a network strategy should be, a brief review of the history is helpful. Cold Pizza debuted in 2003 to awful acclaim and ratings but marginally improved those with the addition of the 1st and Ten segment featuring Skip

Bayless. 1st and Ten and Cold Pizza then became First Take in 2007 which put emphasis on the revolving door of guest contributors with Bayless as an everyday co- host but not the focus and ratings improved for First Take over what they were as Cold

Pizza. In 2011, ESPN2 Vice President of programing Jamie Horowitz changed the focus of First Take to Bayless’s unfiltered opinion and ratings hit new highs. Horowitz then hired Stephen A. Smith as an everyday co-host to Bayless who premiered in June 2012 cementing First Take as a solely debate entertainment show and also as the most watched program on ESPN2 for the next three years.

This is important for several reasons. By 2012, Bayless and Smith would be succeeding at drawing audiences to debate programing. They would surpass Mike &

Mike in the Morning, ESPN2’s show that airs before First Take and was previously the most popular before Smith joined, and the ratings data would suggest that controversial debate shows attracted more viewers than radio shows simulcast on television even if the radio show personality was found more favorable by the public.

Fox Sports 1 would officially launch as a network competitor to ESPN six months after Smith joined Bayless on First Take. FS1 spent the next three years struggling with shows like Fox Sports Live, which was modeled after SportsCenter, and others with celebrity personalities outside of sports such as Regis Philbin. This study’s focus is on the two years that follow up until present day mid-2018.

This when Horowitz is hired as president of FS1, he rebrands the network as

Embrace Debate 2.0 hiring Bayless and fellow ESPN personality Colin Cowherd. This is when executives moved First Take to ESPN from ESPN2 and in 2017 announced the break up of Mike & Mike to move Mike Greenberg to a new studio morning show in

2018. Amid all these changes from new host pairings to varying show formats and even including moves to different networks, one question that arises is if any consistency in ratings retention can be defined. That is what this data help explain.

Commentator Loyalty Versus Favorability

The results suggest a few trends. The frequency with which anger and disgust words are used in tweets both to and from Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith cement them as the most pervasive purveyors of incendiary language. Bayless leads Smith in anger categories but the data show the speech both these men use reflects the speech

the audience uses to tweet at them and that it is filled with anger and disgust dialect.

This finding was included in the predictions because it matches each personas. Anger outpaced disgust to and from the commentator, usually at a rate of about 2-to-1, which is consistent with the hypothesis that anger can be manipulated as an approach emotion to provoke an actionable response from an audience.

Emotions may help explain action but the psychological continuum model outlines how brand loyalty progresses in an individual. The data collected through survey research reveal insight into a range of consumer behaviors and connections with sports commentators. The overall conclusion the results suggest is that Stephen A.

Smith, the most anger-provoking commentator on the most watched network, has the most loyal following of consumers despite not being the most favorable.

This has several implications for industry practice. Considering all the data this dissertation presents in the content analysis, the survey, and also in the ratings information collected at the beginning combine to demonstrate that sports debate entertainment television can be profitable. In fact, the numbers from the last five to fifteen years tell the complete story of the course a debate show can take. First Take has been the industry standard in sports for the debate genre. For over a decade starring a revolving door of commentators and airing on two different networks, First

Take has prevailed and, until Get Up began feeding into it, had been producing its best ratings in program history. This demonstrates the long-term success despite major adversity the show has faced. Mike & Mike in the Morning, before ESPN’s decision to move Mike Greenberg, also established that radio programs simulcast on TV could

produce followings as well. Even in its 18th year before the split, the show was profitable and peaked at its second highest rating mark ever in its final episode.

Whereas ESPN is a case study for the long-term success these styles of sports entertainment programing can have, Fox Sports 1 in the last five years has tried to apply the same strategies to produce instant success. The Herd has already done this and Skip Bayless, the most controversial of all personalities, is likely to do the same by the end of 2018 recreating the success he had on First Take for a different company in a short time. This all suggests that sports debate entertainment programing and radio simulcasting is not only profitable quickly but also sustainable spanning multiple decades. This provides clear direction for the many other networks, such as NBCSN and CBSSports, that are trying to compete. A company can be built around controversial personalities if those commentators utilize anger instead of disgust.

Network executives should not be discouraged by data that shows the overall favorability of the commentator is low because this is independent of the loyalty a commentator is developing with the audience. As this study concludes, the two most controversial personalities, Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless, had followers with the highest levels of brand loyalty.

Further Study

The implications of this dissertation’s findings is just the beginning. Derived from political science, this study’s focus is on-air television personalities originally seen reporting the news. Understanding how discrete emotions, especially those that act as approach and avoidance emotions, can help understand how upstart networks can build and retain audiences quickly. Further study is needed to know how much impact the

emotions had. One way of pursuing this further study would be looking at how people consume the sports entertainment individually. This can be separated from television viewers to radio listeners and even users who watch short clips on company websites or

YouTube instead of the full shows on television.

Quantifying brand loyalty also has incredible importance to almost any field from business, to politics, and mass communication. This study begins to operationalize different stages of the PCM which demonstrates levels of brand loyalty but more study is needed. The sports television media will continue its volatility as more people cut the cord and social media changes what programing holds an audience attention.

Conclusion

Sports media is growing. On social media, especially Twitter, and across all channels more people are consuming sports entertainment than ever before. This does not mean that every commentator, show, or network is profiting however. Even the

Worldwide Leader in Sports is struggling to connect new programing to audiences at the cost of hundreds of jobs that are disappearing. Cord cutters, bad long-term contracts with the NFL and the MLB, and the steady decline in viewership of the once popular

SportsCenter have put pressure on ESPN’s ability to attract and retain on-air talent which has opened the opportunity for FS1 to compete. FS1 in five years has built an audience the size of ESPN2 but may continue to grow.

APPENDIX A SURVEY

Survey Questions – Likert scale response 1 – 7 with 1 being strongly disagree and 7 representing strongly agree Pre-test Questions Are you a consumer of sports entertainment media? This does not include games. a. Yes b. No Select the sports personality you watch or listen to the most: a. Skip Bayless b. Colin Cowherd c. Mike Greenberg d. Stephen A. Smith e. None of these Please answer the following statements in reference to the commentator you selected Psychological Commitment I am a real fan of the sport commentator 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I am very committed to the sport commentator 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree There is nothing that could change my commitment to the commentator 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I will not change my affiliation from the commentator I chose to another commentator in the future just because my commentator is not popular anymore 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I will defend the commentator in public even if this caused problems. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I will not change my affiliation from my commentator to another commentator just because my friends try to convince me to. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree It is really important to me that my commentator stays with his current network. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree The long-term success of my commentator is important to me. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree Behavioral Loyalty I have often watched my commentator on TV 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I have listened to my commentator over more than one platform (for example: television, radio, podcast, etc.) 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I have interacted with my commentator on social media. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree

I have purchased merchandise because it advertises on my commentator’s show. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I have watched other programs on the same network as my commentator because his show airs there. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree I have participated in discussions about my commentator with others. 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree Using a scale from 1-100 whereas 1 indicates a strong unfavorable feeling and 100 indicates a strong favorable feeling, please list write a number next to the following names: Skip Bayless ______Stephen A. Smith______Colin Cowherd______Mike Greenberg______Figure A–1. Survey

APPENDIX B IRB PROTOCOL

Figure B-1. IRB approval

Figure B-2. MTurk Forms

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Robert Winsler is a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida College of

Journalism and Communications. His research focus is in sports entertainment television specifically how on-air personalities develop brand loyalty with their audiences.

Before joining the University of Florida’s Ph.D. program in 2014, he spent over seven years living in Tampa working as a freelance sports writer for the Tampa Bay

Times and a political communications consultant for numerous campaigns and causes.

He moved to Crystal River in 2016, and after successfully managing a campaign for

Citrus County Sheriff, opened an advertising services company that has several political and commercial clients.

Robert has a M.A. in strategic communication management from the University of South Florida and a B.A. in writing from the University of Tampa. He joined the adjunct faculty of his undergraduate Alma Mater in 2018 teaching advertising and media on a part-time basis while operating his business.